The Lodge

2019

R

This time next week, it will be October and I wanted to give you guys a little head start on a horror film that may be interesting this October as Halloween approaches and to kick it off, I’m going to give you a review of The Lodge. This film made its Sundance Film Festival debut in January 2019 and was intended to be released in late 2019, but didn’t make it to theaters until February 2020. This film is classified as a psychological horror film and personally, If I am going to watch a horror film, I like this particular subgenre the best. I didn’t know much about this film prior to discovering it a couple months ago and I finally watched it this week. With all of that being said, here is my review of The Lodge and a fair warning, some elements of describing this film may be sensitive to some people, so proceed with caution.

At the beginning of the film we see a woman and we find out her name is Laura Hall (Alicia Silverstone), she is trying to get her children, Aiden (Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh), together to meet their father at another house and she is clearly not in her right mindset. The father of Aiden and Mia and Laura’s separated husband, Richard Hall (Richard Armitage), wants to move forward with the divorce, so he can marry Grace Marshall (Riley Keough). That wasn’t the news that she wanted to hear and decides to end her own life. The family is distraught and as time progresses it signifies that her sudden passing is still affecting them months later.

It is almost Christmas time and Richard tells the children that they will be spending Christmas in their remote home, “The Lodge”, and Grace would be accompanying them, in fact, it was her idea. The kids do not like Grace and not for the normal reasons. Grace was the only survivor from a mass suicide mission led by her father, Aaron (Danny Keough). She was involved in a radical Christian cult that convinced people to commit suicide due to their sin. While doing a little research on the computer, the children come across Grace’s dark past, but Richard doesn’t know what they’re up to. He still insists that they join him and Grace for the trip and says that it would be a great bonding experience. Shortly after arriving at the house, Richard has to leave, due to work related issues. The children do not open up to Grace and act dismissive toward her basically the whole time that they’re there. Grace is trying to bond with the children, but with no luck. We see that Grace clearly has some psychological issues and she takes medication to cope with those issues. The Hall family is Catholic and they have symbolic things around the house that make Grace feel uneasy. These things trigger nightmares from her past.

It “appears” that the relationship between Grace and the kids is getting slightly better after a couple of days and they watch a movie on the couch in front of a kerosene heater and fall asleep. When Grace wakes up the next morning, the power is out, the generator doesn’t work, all of their cell phones are dead, and basically everything is missing from the house. Also, the calendars are set on the wrong date. Aiden has a short conversation with Grace about how he had a nightmare about them all dying in the house due to a gas leak from the heater and suggests that they all may be dead and living in the afterlife, but this is seemingly another tactic to mess with Grace’s mind. With Grace’s medication gone and things seemingly going totally wrong on this trip, Grace has major psychological episodes, which cause sleepwalking and other scary things over the next few days. The rest of the film shows her trying to cope with these intense situations.

I wanted to stop the description right there because it is a fairly recent movie release and I didn’t want to give too much away. Like I said earlier, I didn’t know much about this film until a few weeks ago when I saw it on Hulu. The only thing I knew about it was the fact that Riley Keough was the leading star of it. Riley Keough is an accomplished actress, who has been in a number of films and is starting to gain a lot of momentum in Hollywood. The only reason I know of her is because she is Elvis Presley’s granddaughter. Even though she has been in films like Logan Lucky, Mad Max: Fury Road, Paterno, American Honey, and the TV series The Girlfriend Experience, this is the first thing that I have seen her in and I have to say, she did an incredible job in this film.

The cast of this was small, but very accomplished. I already discussed Riley Keough, but Alicia Silverstone was best known for her leading role in the cult classic, Clueless. Jaeden Martell is becoming a well-known young actor and has starred in the recent adaptations of It, appeared in the Academy Award nominated film, Knives Out, and starred in an Apple TV+ miniseries, Defending Jacob. Richard Armitage starred in The Hobbit trilogy, animated series Castlevania, and even appeared in Captain America: The First Avenger.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. Like I mentioned before, if I am going to watch a horror film, I lean towards psychological horror rather than say a slasher or gory film. The Lodge has a 6.0/10 rating on IMDb and is a 73% on Rotten Tomatoes. While it wasn’t a near perfect film, I think the IMDb rating is a little too harsh. There were mostly positive reviews from critics, but user reviews mostly complained of how boring the story was and how slow the film went. I personally thought the pacing of it was perfect, but I also have to say I like a good slow burner, especially when it comes to horror. As mentally taxing as the film was, it was relatively short at 108 minutes and I think that was the perfect amount of time to tell the story. There are certain aspects of the film that I didn’t understand, but ultimately, I think those things weren’t meant to be understood. For example, Richard’s job that was so important to leave his family at Christmas was never explained, so we never had a clue about what he did for a living. My best guess is that he was a journalist, due to the fact that he researched a book tied to Grace’s past, but that is a complete guess. Also, I saw some reviews saying that they should’ve made Grace as a more sympathetic character and I totally agree. We understand why she has these psychological episodes, but I feel like we weren’t given a proper chance to feel like things could turn around for her and she could overcome her mental destruction.

This movie was meant to make you actively think about what is taking place in front of you and I like that this film did this. A lot of user reviews claimed that it attempted to be an intelligent film, but I disagree. Psychological warfare and intelligence are two different things and this film sprinkled a lot of little details within it to try to get our attention. I found myself questioning where the film was headed a little more than halfway through and I personally loved that about this movie. The ending wasn’t really a surprise, but I felt like I was actively trying to decipher many different outcomes and I enjoyed that this film gave the viewer so many possibilities.

If you are in the mood to be freaked out this October, I would totally recommend The Lodge. It was definitely a freaky film, but a film that viewers are ultimately going to love or hate with little opinion in between. I think it is most similar to the film Hereditary, which happens to be one of my favorite horror movies. Psychological horror isn’t for everyone, but for those of you that enjoy that sort of thing, it is a must watch. The movie is R rated, so expect some graphic language and obviously the film is filled with dark scenes that definitely are not suitable for everyone.

GRADE: 4.0/5

Yacs

Movie Review: The Lodge